


Forget Me Nott

by animos



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Memory Alteration, the mighty nein - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 01:26:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14094012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animos/pseuds/animos
Summary: “C-Caleb…” She tried one more time, fighting back the tears.She crept slowly over until she was right in front of him. Blue eyes passed over her without a pause and no sign of warmth or recognition.“Caleb, got everything?” Molly called out.“Yes, I suppose so.” He murmured and with that turned his back towards her and climbed into the cart.The rest of the group is does not remember Nott or seem able to hear or see her.





	Forget Me Nott

**Author's Note:**

> I’m loving the new campaign of Critical Role, especially the adorable relationship between Caleb and Nott, and it’s inspired me to start writing again. I have 4 different story ideas I want to write but this won out simply due to how stupidly excited/proud I am of the title pun.

_Click, click, click._ Nott amused herself with the satisfying sound and feel as the little hand mirror clasped open and shut. The mirror was the latest addition to her collection, she had swiped it from a small girl dressed in some frilly, lacy dress in the last town they had visited. The girl had been stamping her foot and shouting, whining about candy to her parents as other passerbys took wide detours to avoid the little scene taking place outside a cluster of stores. She had certainly seemed grumpy enough and it had been all too easy for Nott to have her Mage Hand pull the shiny, silvery mirror from the girl’s velvet handbag and carry it over to the goblin’s eager hands.

Nott clasped it shut again and wiggled deeper into Caleb’s side as a cold gust blew through their camp. The pair had taken the third watch and it was now getting bitterly cold at night as the Mighty Nein continued their way north. Caleb draped an arm around her shoulders and she nestled in further, welcoming the warmth. “Next town, we’ll have to look into getting warmer clothes again, won’t be too much longer until we start seeing snow at this rate.” Nott made a face a that remark, she hated snow - so cold and wet. Caleb just chuckled and went back to browsing his book. Though really both were on watch, they were taking turns so one didn’t have to stare out and look at nothing for hours at a time.

It was her turn now and it was getting to be dreadfully boring, staring out a nothing. They were camped under a small cluster of trees, a small hill separating their camp from the road they were following ever north. Around them in all directions stretched a sea of tall, swaying grass that rose and fell with the gentle slopes. Nothing stirred or moved besides the occasional whispering as the wind shifted the grasses. Not that she wished for something to happen, nothing was better than something in this case but it was third watch which meant she had been up so early and right now she just wanted to curl up in her warm nest of blankets and sleep for a few more hours.

For a while the two sat in companionable silence, Nott played with her mirror, admiring the way the firelight reflected off the silvery surface and occasionally looking out at the empty, quiet fields surrounding them.

Her ears pricked up, angling towards a particularly dense patch of grasses and shrubs to her left. _There_. Something was rustling the grass. She squinted and focused on where she thought the sounds were coming from but the low burning fire messed with her vision. She nudged Caleb with the shoulder he was leaning against. “Caleb, did you hear that?”

She turned, only to see him dozed off, book loosely held in one hand and head bowed. She was surprised he was still upright for what little weight he was leaning against her. Then again, he did have a knack for falling asleep even in the oddest positions.

She shifted her weight and fiddled with her little mirror. There was something out there, it could be nothing, or it could be something dangerous. She should wake at least Caleb... but he needed his sleep, and what if it turned out to just be like the time with the buffalo? She didn’t want to bother the others over nothing.

The grasses rustled again, closer this time, and with that Nott made her decision. She’s go take a look, just a quick one, to see if it was anything to worry about. She had her little piece of copper wire or she could shout if she needed to wake everyone up. She stood up carefully,  keeping Caleb from falling over as his support left. Caleb still slept though he curled further in and hugged his coat tighter around him. Nott delicately placed her own blanket around his shoulders then stealthily padded off.

Once she was away from the campsite she paused to let her darkvision take full effect. Away from their little camp, the grasses rose to about chest height on her and stretched out across rolling hills to the horizon which was just starting to lighten with the coming morning sun.

She stood still for some time, listening as the first morning birds began to stir but everything else was quiet in the pre-dawn hour. She bit her lip and turned to head back to camp. She must have just been imagining it, or maybe it was just a badger or something passing through.

The rustling came again and Nott’s head shot up, she tilted her ears to try and determine the source. It seemed to be closer this time to both her and the camp. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to want to avoid them.

Ever so carefully, she pulled her shortsword out and crept softly over to the dense path of grass and shrubs where it seemed to be coming from. Muscles tense and ready to spring, she used the tip of her sword to push a clump of grass out of her way.

She heard a high-pitched shriek and barely had time to register a small, dark shape leap from the dense brush towards her.

Something small, lighter than Frumpkin landed on her shoulders. Several pairs of insect-like legs scrambled for purchase, she felt it dig sharp little claws into her clothes and skin to keep her from throwing it off. She clawed furiously at the thing but whatever it may be, it was fast and agile, avoiding her frantic attempts to swat it. She just caught sight of moonlight reflecting off a smooth, glossy black surface before it scuttled around to her back where she lost all sight of it and her hands had harder time reaching.

There was a sharp pinch right at the back of her neck, like a stab of a dagger-tip. Before she could react, her limbs began to feel heavy and uncoordinated, her arms weak as she continued to try and scratch at whatever the thing was. Numbness made it hard to command her body.

Too late, she tried to yell out to her friends but the words caught in her throat as she stumbled over her wooden tongue. “C-Ca-leb…” She mumbled, barely above a whisper. She fell forward, ground rushing up to meet her. The last thing she saw before crashing into the tall grass was the little campfire where Caleb and the rest laid sleeping, unaware.

~

“Caaaaleb! Caleb wake up, they’re attacking the camp!”

Caleb woke to see a dark shape looming above him, violently shaking his arm. Instinctively he flinched back and reached for… something. He blinked, confused as whatever he had thought to grasp was not there by his side.

Another beat and he realized what had woken him was just Jester, standing above him but bent over with hands on her knees to have her face only inches from his, a bright grin on her face that was far too wide for how early in the morning it was. “Wake up sleepy head! A rabid swarm of squirrels attacked the camp on your watch! Poor Molly lost an arm!”

“Damn thing was a bitch to grow back.” Molly said deadpan as he continued walking past, carrying his bedroll to the cart with both intact arms.

The others were awake as well and preparing for yet another day of travel. Yasha was getting the horses hitched to the cart as Beau struggled to get some of the reins and harnesses untangled, cursing to herself. Fjord had just finished stamping out what remained of their smouldering campfire, kicking dirt on the remaining few glowing embers.

Caleb frowned, looking about their small group. Something seemed… off, but he didn’t know why. He shook his head, trying to shake the last bits of sleep from his head as adrenaline still surged from Jester’s little joke. Fjord looked up from his task and seemed to notice Caleb’s confusion.

“You alright Caleb?” He asked in that slow drawl of his.

“I’m… fine. Still just waking up. Sorry for falling asleep on watch.” He muttered.

Jester giggled. “I don’t know why we let the blind squishy human take watch alone, next time you’ll partner with me! If you fall asleep with me I’ll draw dicks all over your face and books.”

Before Caleb could reply, she skipped away to help Beau with the harnesses. He frowned and slowly stood up, he had been on watch with… someone. They had discussed taking watches in pairs due to the higher levels of bandit activity in this region, he thought carefully as he folded up his blankets. Yasha had offered to take first watch and Beau had been eager to take the same, Fjord and Jester had agreed to take second, so it must have been himself and Molly for third. Had he forgotten to wake up Molly to join him on watch? That must be it, he thought as he finished packing away his small collection of belongings.

Something about that still seemed off but Caleb shrugged off his confusion to be from tiredness. He loaded his things into the cart as the rest got into positions: Molly in the driver’s seat of the cart, Jester seated in the back, while Beau, Fjord, and Yasha each took a horse to ride. He was the last to take his place, he reached up to the side of the cart to climb in but stopped to take one last look around the spot one last time. Everything was packed up, all horses harnessed, nothing he could see still sitting out. Why did it feel like something was missing?

“Caleb, got everything?” Molly called, reigns held at the ready.

“Yes, I suppose so.” He murmured and with that climbed into the back of the cart. Molly flicked the reins and the cart began to roll away. To keep himself from looking up once again at the now empty campsite, he pulled out one of his books to read but found it hard to concentrate as the crew of the Mighty Nein continued on.

~

Nott woke with a gasp and immediately started coughing as she inhaled the dirt her face was pressed up against. She sat up, gagging at the awful grit on her tongue. After a few moments of swallowing and spitting she got most of the dust out. It was only then that she took note of her surroundings, from where she sat, tall grasses reached above her head to a sky that was a mix of pale blues and pinks from the morning sunrise.

_Oh no, how long have I been knocked out?_

The night’s events came back to her, the strange rustling in the grasses she had went off alone to investigate, the weird small thing that had attacked her. She quickly checked herself over but didn’t see any scratches or wounds from whatever that thing had been. She sprung up, Caleb and the others would be worried, or what if whatever had attacked her had went after the camp with her gone?

She darted back towards camp and was relieved to see everyone awake and unharmed. She got close enough just in time to see Jester yell something in Caleb’s face and the man jerk out of sleep, instinctively reaching to his side where Nott had been last night.

She saw him frown, brow wrinkled in confusion as he looked about the camp. Nott sidled up to him. “Sorry I wandered off Caleb, I thought I heard something, out in the bushes.” She decided not to mention that it had happened several hours ago, no need to make him worry when nothing had really happened.

Caleb didn’t acknowledge her, just continued to look over the camp as though searching for something, confusion on his face. “Caleb?” She asked, wondering if maybe there had been another nightmare, sometimes Caleb would wake up confused after those and need a moment to remember where he was.

“You alright Caleb?” Fjord, must have noticed something was off about him too.

“I’m… fine. Still just waking up. Sorry for falling asleep on watch.”

Jester poked him. “I don’t know why we let the blind squishy human take watch alone, next time you’ll partner with me! If you fall asleep with me I’ll draw dicks all over your face and books.”

“Hey, it’s not his fault! And I was on watch with him!” Nott protested, coming to his defense. But Jester was already skipping away, going over to where Beau had somehow gotten her own foot wrapped in the various reigns and leads she was trying to separate out.

Caleb stood up slowly, groaning slightly. “Did you have another bad dream?” She asked quietly, reaching to grab their blankets for him. Caleb scooped them up before she could, still not looking at her.

A lump of dread weighed heavy in her chest.

“What’s wrong? Are you upset with Jester? With me? I’m sorry for going off, I just wanted to check things out before I woke everyone else up.”

Caleb continued to ignore her, his brow was wrinkled in that way that meant he was trying to figure something out. He folded the bedding, including Nott’s blanket wrapped in with his own, and grabbed his small pack.

Nott carefully tugged at his coat and cringed, as though expecting a blow. Caleb had never struck her before, well besides that time when he had pretended to be a guard at the carnival, but he was also acting very strangely. Caleb acted as though he hadn’t even felt the hesitant pull and walked away from her to the cart.

“Caleb!” She called to his back, fear now rising and threatening to overwhelm her. Something was very wrong here. She ran over to Jester who had finished rescuing Beau from the harnesses and was now pulling out a pastry from her bag.

“Jester! Something’s wrong with Caleb!” The blue tiefling didn’t even pause as she took a giant bite of the squashed muffin. Without even glancing at her, Jester turned to Fjord coming up and pulled out another pastry. Nott felt herself on the verge of panic as Jester also did not even look up or react to her shouting.

“Jester, Fjord!” She yanked on Jester’s sleeve, more forceful than she had with Caleb.

“Fjord, do you want one? I made sure I had one left for everyone’s breakfast!” She said smiling, holding out a rather sad looking muffin. "I actually even have one extra so if you're nice to me maybe I'll let you have two!"

“FJORD!” Nott screeched it out this time, wrapping her arms around herself as Fjord just looked dubiously at the offered food.

“Uh, no thanks Jester, you can have mine.”

She turned and ran from the two, stopping in front of Mollymauk who was climbing into the driver’s seat of the cart. She grabbed onto his boot and held on fiercely, “Molly?!” She shouted, yanking back to prevent him from pulling himself up. He scrunched his face, expression hard to read with those solid red eyes and with one hand rubbed his forehead.

“Something wrong Molly?” Yasha asked softly, appearing at his side far too quietly for a woman her size.

Nott let go of Molly’s foot and he finished climbing and settled himself in, though he still had an odd look on his face. “Just a headache, it’s gone now. Strange how quickly it came and went.”

“Do you think it was just a headache or… something else?” She asked intently, concern clear on her features.

Molly looked around the camp as he seemed to think it over, the others were all finishing packing and getting set for departing soon. “I don’t know, I got a strange sense that something seems… off but I have no idea what it could be.” Yasha just nodded and clasped his shoulder before going over to her own horse.

Nott looked around, just about everyone was in place to leave, she noted in alarm. Would they actually leave without her? The only one still getting set was Caleb. The wizard was halted halfway to getting in the wagon, one hand and foot on the sides as he seemed to look over their small group and surrounding area. He still had a slight frown and wrinkle in his forehead, like he often had when trying to decipher a particularly tricky spell.

“C-Caleb…” She tried one more time, fighting back the tears. She crept slowly over until she was right in front of him.

Blue eyes passed over her without a pause and no sign of warmth or recognition.

“Caleb, got everything?” Molly called out.

“Yes, I suppose so.” He murmured and with that turned his back towards her and climbed into the cart. Fjord let out a enthusiastic ‘yeehaw!’ and Molly snapped the reigns and with that the Mighty Nein moved on, minus one little goblin that simply collapsed into the dirt.

And with no one to notice or care, Nott finally let the tears fall unrestrained.


End file.
